Wakefield Trinity 12-6 Huddersfield — 1961/62 Challenge Cup Final

Wembley Stadium, London · Attendance: 81,263

Data last verified: 11 August 2026.

1961/62 Challenge Cup Final: Wakefield Trinity 12-6 Huddersfield, at Wembley Stadium, London.

Sourcing caveat: Try scorers, additional goal-kicking detail, and the referee's name could not be confirmed for either team; the 'no place-kick converted' claim is Wikipedia's characterization and worth double-checking against a further source. Lineups added on this second pass via Wikiwand (a Wikipedia mirror), after direct en.wikipedia.org fetches of this article again returned the team-sheet template with player-name cells empty — the same reproducible extraction gap seen on other seasons in this file; Wikiwand's rendering came through cleanly on the first attempt. Neil Fox appears at centre, consistent with his three drop goals recorded above, and Harold Poynton at stand-off, consistent with him appearing at the same club and position in the very next season (1962/63) already in this file. Position labels are not printed on the Wikiwand page — only shirt numbers 1-13 — so positions below follow this site's standard pre-1966 numbering convention, as elsewhere in this file. Neither team's coach was given on the source page and both are omitted. This was a pre-substitute-era final, so no interchange field applies.

Scorers

Wakefield Trinity	Drop goals: Neil Fox (3 drop goals, then worth 2 points each)
Huddersfield	No scorers recorded.

Teams

Wakefield Trinity			Huddersfield
1	Gerry Round	Fullback	Frank Dyson	1
2	Fred Smith	Wing	Aiden Breen	2
3	Alan Skene	Centre	Leo Booth	3
4	Neil Fox	Centre	Ray Haywood	4
5	Kenneth Hirst	Wing	Mike Wicks	5
6	Harold Poynton	Stand-off	Harry Deighton	6
7	Keith Holliday	Scrum-half	Thomas Smales	7
8	Jack Wilkinson	Prop	Ted Slevin	8
9	Geoff Oakes	Hooker	Don Close	9
10	Albert Firth	Prop	Ken Noble	10
11	Brian Briggs	Second-row	Mick Clark	11
12	Dennis Williamson	Second-row	Kenneth Bowman	12
13	Derek Turner	Loose forward (c)	Peter Ramsden	13

Match officials

Referee	—
Lance Todd Trophy	Neil Fox (Wakefield Trinity, centre) — Lance Todd Trophy

Match report

Wakefield Trinity beat Huddersfield 12-6 in front of 81,263, Trinity's third Challenge Cup final win in four appearances. The game is remembered chiefly for Neil Fox's three drop goals (then worth two points each rather than the modern one), an unusual route to victory that also produced, according to Wikipedia's account, rugby league's only Challenge Cup final on record where no place-kick was successfully converted. Fox's kicking and all-round display earned him the Lance Todd Trophy. For much of the competition's early history the final rotated around northern club and representative grounds such as Headingley, Fartown, Central Park and the Athletic Ground, Rochdale, before Wembley Stadium became the final's permanent home from 1928/29 onward (with a short break during Wembley's 2000-2007 reconstruction, when finals were staged at Murrayfield, Twickenham and the Millennium Stadium instead). Since 1946/47, the competition's individual award, the Lance Todd Trophy, has been presented to the final's outstanding player, voted for by a panel of media representatives at the final whistle — on several notable occasions the trophy has gone to a player on the losing side, an unusual honour that reflects the award's focus on individual performance rather than simply reflecting the final scoreline. This was the 61st Challenge Cup final played, and, under the name “Wakefield Trinity,” the 4th Challenge Cup title for the club. The result is recorded in this site's full results table alongside every other Challenge Cup final played since the competition's 1896/97 inception, cross-referenced against the venue and attendance figures gathered for that table. As with all of this site's rugby league match reports, any statistic that couldn't be confirmed from an accessible source — a scorer's name, an exact minute, a goal-kicking split — has been left out entirely rather than estimated, in line with the sourcing standard applied across the Challenge Cup, World Cup, World Club Challenge and domestic finals coverage on this site.

Round by round

Jump to round:

Round 1

Result	Venue	Attendance	Date
Barrow 14–3 Whitehaven	Craven Park	—	1962-02-10
Blackpool Borough 18–2 Liverpool City	St Anne's Road	—	1962-02-10
Brookhouse 4–7 Doncaster	Barnsley Road	—	1962-02-10
Castleford 12–0 Bradford Northern	Wheldon Road	—	1962-02-10
Dewsbury 5–3 Halifax	Crown Flatt	—	1962-02-10
Featherstone Rovers 21–14 Batley	Post Office Road	—	1962-02-10
Hunslet 53–10 Oldham St Annes	Parkside	—	1962-02-10
Keighley 3–25 Wigan	Lawkholme Lane	—	1962-02-10
Leeds 34–6 Bramley	Headingley	—	1962-02-10
Oldham 32–16 Hull	Watersheddings	—	1962-02-10
Salford 2–15 St Helens	The Willows	—	1962-02-10
Swinton 0–2 Hull Kingston Rovers	Station Road	—	1962-02-10
Wakefield Trinity 40–18 Warrington	Belle Vue	—	1962-02-10
Widnes 3–13 Leigh	Naughton Park	—	1962-02-10
Workington Town 14–2 Rochdale Hornets	Derwent Park	—	1962-02-10
York 7–8 Huddersfield	Wigginton Road	—	1962-02-10

Round 2

Result	Venue	Attendance	Date
Blackpool Borough 4–16 Wakefield Trinity	St Anne's Road	—	1962-03-03
Castleford 27–14 Hunslet	Wheldon Road	—	1962-03-03
Featherstone Rovers 14–2 Doncaster	Post Office Road	—	1962-03-03
Hull Kingston Rovers 14–5 Barrow	Craven Park	—	1962-03-03
Leigh 7–7 Leeds	Hilton Park	—	1962-03-03
Oldham 0–5 Workington Town	Watersheddings	—	1962-03-03
St Helens 2–13 Huddersfield	Knowsley Road	—	1962-03-03
Wigan 50–2 Dewsbury	Central Park	—	1962-03-03
Leeds 16–17 Leigh	Headingley	—	1962-03-05

Round 3

Result	Venue	Attendance	Date
Castleford 4–4 Huddersfield	Wheldon Road	—	1962-03-24
Featherstone Rovers 23–9 Leigh	Post Office Road	—	1962-03-24
Wakefield Trinity 5–4 Wigan	Belle Vue	—	1962-03-24
Workington Town 3–15 Hull Kingston Rovers	Derwent Park	—	1962-03-24
Huddersfield 10–4 Castleford	Fartown	—	1962-03-28

Semi Finals

Result	Venue	Attendance	Date
Wakefield Trinity 9–0 Featherstone Rovers	Odsal Stadium	43627	1962-04-11
Huddersfield 6–0 Hull Kingston Rovers	Odsal Stadium	31153	1962-04-14

Final

Result	Venue	Attendance	Date
Wakefield Trinity 12–6 Huddersfield	Wembley Stadium, London	81263	1962-05-12

Early rounds feature amateur and community clubs alongside professional ones; team names are linked only where this site has a team page for that exact club, matching the same safety-first approach used for the Final's own results table.

Sources

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